The move is a highly controversial one, because some of the departments in the new arrangement involve areas of high potential conflict in the tension of editorial and sales imperatives.
The areas are no small matters: sports, health/education, entertainment, travel/luxury, automotive, real estate, communications, preprints/grocery, recruitment, retail/finance, and SMB/Interactive.
Sports, for instance, would have to weigh coverage of the Cowboys, Mavericks and Stars through the lens of what matters for the paper's readers and for its marketing and sales prowess. (Update: The sports editor for the Morning News defends the practice as nothing particularly new.)
Entertainment and lifestyles are also under this arrangement. These areas also have a challenging balance at the best of times between publicity-seeking entities and reader-first initiatives.
Needless to say, the move by such a significant title to this approach is jolting some in the business. But it's more evidence of the pressure on news organizations to groom themselves optimally for economic success.